Myra Eleanor Sadd Brown (3 October 1872 – 13 April 1938) was a campaigner for

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

, an activist and internationalist. A

suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...

, she became a member of the

Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and ...

(WSPU) in 1907 and, after breaking a window at the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

in 1912 was sentenced to two months in prison with hard labour. In prison Sadd Brown went on

hunger strike A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...

as a result of which she was

force-fed Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term ''gavage'' (, , ) refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose ( nasogastric) or mouth (orogastric) into t ...

. On her release from prison she was awarded a

Hunger Strike Medal The Hunger Strike Medal was a silver medal awarded between August 1909 and 1914 to suffragette prisoners by the leadership of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). During their imprisonment, they went on hunger strike while serving th ...

by the WSPU.Myra Eleanor Sadd Brown, Women's Rights Activist & Internationalist (1872-1938)
-

Museums Victoria Museums Victoria is an organisation which operates three major state-owned museums in Melbourne, Victoria: the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks Museum. It also manages the Royal Exhibition Building and a storage facil ...

Collections

Early life

Born as Myra Eleanor Sadd in October 1872 in

Maldon Maldon (, locally ) is a town and civil parish on the River Blackwater, Essex, Blackwater estuary in Essex, England. It is the seat of the Maldon District and starting point of the Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation. It is known for Maldon Sea ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

the tenth of eleven children of John Granger Sadd and Mary Ann ''née'' Price, her family ran a successful firm of timber merchants and processors.David Doughan
Brown, Myra Eleanor Sadd [née Myra Eleanor Sadd] (1872–1938)
- ''

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

'', Published online: 23 September 2004 She was privately educated at a school in

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...

and was already interested in the campaign for women's suffrage before her marriage in July 1896 to Ernest Brown (1869-1930), a co-founder with his brother Albert Brown of Brown Brothers, a firm supplying bicycle parts and whom she met through their mutual love of cycling. The couple decorated their wedding venue the Congregational chapel in

in purple, white and green which later became the colours of the

. Like many other progressive couples of the time they combined their surname to Sadd Brown. They moved to London where they had four children including: Myra Sadd Brown (1899–1992); Emily Price Brown (1906–1988) and Jean Frances Brown (1908–1988). Her husband's firm of Brown Brothers diversified from bicycles into electrical appliances, prams and aeroplanes. Moving into motor car manufacture in 1898 their vehicles included the

Brown quadricycle The Brown Quadricycle was first sold in 1899 by the bicycle and motor factory, Brown Brothers of Great Eastern Street, Brown Brothers of Shoreditch, Great Eastern Street, London, UK. The quadricycle could be bought fully assembled or all th ...

. Brown Brothers became very successful ensuring the Sadd Brown family financial security. Myra Sadd Brown's family were members of the

Congregational church Congregational churches (also Congregationalist churches or Congregationalism) are Protestant churches in the Calvinist tradition practising congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its ...

and later in life she became a

Christian Scientist Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally know ...

. A lover of the arts, she enjoyed the plays of

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

and numbered artists among her friends, including

Henry Holiday Henry Holiday (17 June 183915 April 1927) was a British historical genre and landscape painter, stained-glass designer, illustrator, and sculptor. He is part of the Pre-Raphaelite school of art. Life Early years and training Holiday was born ...

and

Jessie Mothersole Jessie Mothersole (1874–1958) was an English archaeologist, artist, and author. Early life and education Mothersole was born in Essex in 1874 and trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1891/92 until 1896. During this time Mot ...

The Women's Suffrage Movement

Following her marriage in 1896 Myra Sadd Brown maintained her interest in the

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

movement. She became a subscriber to the Central Society for Women's Suffrage in 1902 and joined the

in 1907, also maintaining her membership of other such suffrage groups as the

Women's Freedom League The Women's Freedom League was an organisation in the United Kingdom which campaigned for women's suffrage and sexual equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access ...

and the Free Church League for Woman Suffrage. Her letters publicising the cause regularly appeared in such publications as the ''Christian Commonwealth'' and she also involved her children in the fight including persuading her teenage daughter Myra to stand in the street selling copies of '' The Woman's Dreadnought''. Later she would be involved in

Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with ...

East London Federation of Suffragettes The Workers' Socialist Federation was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom, led by Sylvia Pankhurst. Under many different names, it gradually broadened its politics from a focus on women's suffrage to eventually become a left com ...

in which cause she would invite bus-loads of women from London's

East End The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

to her house near

Arrest and imprisonment

On 4 March 1912 Sadd Brown was arrested for throwing a brick through a window at the

, for which she was sentenced to two months hard labour in

Holloway Prison HM Prison Holloway was a closed category prison for adult women and young offenders in Holloway, London, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. It was the largest women's prison in western Europe, until its closure in 2016. Hist ...

together with a number of other suffragettes including Mrs

Emmeline Pankhurst Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...

. In prison Sadd Brown, like many other

suffragist Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

s, went on

but was

through rubber tubes forced down her throat. On a later force-feeding Sadd Brown told the prison warders that her nose was broken but they continued to force-feed her claiming that "any pain Mrs Brown may have suffered was due to her violent resistance". Her husband Ernest, having read of her force-feeding in the press wrote to the Prison Governor demanding an explanation.Caitlin Davies
''Bad Girls: A History of Rebels and Renegades''
John Murray (Publishers) 2018 - Google Books] Denied writing materials, Sadd Brown wrote letters home with a blunted pencil on dark brown prison toilet paper and which were smuggled out of prison. Her letters to her husband reveal her determination to fight for the political rights of herself and other women. She wrote: "I feel therefore we have begun to strike the fear of woman if not of God into the hearts of the authorities." While on hunger strike her letter to him said: "I want you to tell all inquiring friends that I am quite well, my spirit not in the least cooled & that I think we still have the noblest cause in the world, one well worth fighting and suffering for." In a letter dated 20 March 1912 she wrote: "Mrs Pankhurst and Ethel Smyth came back to this wing yesterday... Oh just fancy these two great women sitting sewing all afternoon on garments for prisoners – can you imagine anything more ironic, it certainly does seem that the world is topsy-turvy. Why not put Asquith and Sir E. Grey to blacking boots?" In a letter to her children written on toilet paper she states: "I have such a funny little bed, which I can turn right up to the wall when I don't use it. I am learning French & German so you must work well or mummy will know lots more than you." However, in an addition to the letter she informs her husband that: "Mrs Pankhurst thinks there is enough evidence against her to give her 7 years." She wrote to her husband to let their children "know a little where I am so they can send their loving thoughts to me. They need not think because I am shut up I have done wrong." She received a

from the WSPU on her release from prison.

Later life and legacy

During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

the

and other groups dedicated to the campaign for

suspended their militant actions to focus on the war effort. During this time women worked in jobs traditionally done by men, proving they could do them just as well and silencing one of the last arguments against women's suffrage. Myra Sadd Brown hosted the

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

branch of the

in December 1914, hearing

Charlotte Despard Charlotte Despard (née French; 15 June 1844 – 10 November 1939) was an Anglo-Irish suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Féin activist, and novelist. She was a founding member of the Women's Freedom League, Women's Peace Crusade, and the I ...

Anna Munro Anna Gillies Macdonald Munro (4 October 1881 – 11 September 1962) was an active campaigner for temperance and the women's suffrage movement in the United Kingdom. Munro organised and was the secretary of the Women's Freedom League campaigning ...

and

Georgiana Solomon Georgiana Margaret Solomon (née Thomson; born 18 August 1844 – 24 June 1933) was a British educator and campaigner, involved with a wide range of causes in Britain and South Africa. She and her only surviving daughter, Daisy Solomon, were su ...

explain that the movement should support these workers and raising funds for the Women's Suffrage National Aid Corps. After the war the Representation of the People Act 1918 was passed awarding the vote to women householders, or the wives of householders, aged 30 and over. On the cessation of hostilities Myra Sadd Brown became an active member of the International Suffrage Alliance and was at the forefront of setting up of the British Commonwealth League (later the

Commonwealth Countries League The Commonwealth Countries League (CCL), founded in 1925 as the British Commonwealth League, is a voluntary pan-Commonwealth civil society organisation. The objectives are to secure equality of liberties, status and opportunities between men an ...

) in 1925, a feminist group dedicated to upholding the rights of women in Commonwealth countries. She became the League's Treasurer. Her husband Ernest Sadd Brown, who had supported her throughout her years of campaigning and activism, died of rheumatic heart disease in 1930. In 1937 Myra Sadd Brown travelled to south-east Asia in order to be present at the birth of her second grandchild. She then travelled to

Angkor Wat Angkor Wat (; km, អង្គរវត្ត, "City/Capital of Temples") is a temple complex in Cambodia and is the largest religious monument in the world, on a site measuring . Originally constructed as a Hinduism, Hindu temple dedicated ...

and

Malaya Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...

before moving on to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, planning to return home on the

Trans-Siberian Railway The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the ea ...

. However, before she do so she suffered a stroke and died in

Kowloon Hospital Kowloon Hospital is a general care hospital located in Kowloon City District, in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The complex was built on land between Argyle Street and Prince Edward Road. The hospital used to be an acute hospital with accident and eme ...

in Hong Kong in April 1938. She was cremated the following day at the Hindu crematory in Hong Kong. In the corner of the churchyard of the United Reformed Church in

can be found a tree-shaped memorial to the Sadd family which mentions Myra Eleanor Sadd Brown. On her death in 1938 the Commonwealth Countries League established the Sadd Brown Library, now part of the

Women's Library The Women's Library is England's main library and museum resource on women and the women's movement, concentrating on Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries. It has an institutional history as a coherent collection dating back to the mid-1920s, ...

at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

, where her papers and letters to her family from prison are held. A radio item features Sadd Brown's experiences in prison from her letters and talking to her granddaughter by Beth Moss. Her 1912 Hunger Strike medal is held in the Collection of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

in Australia.

References

*Crawford, Elizabeth (1999), ''Women's Suffrage Movement: a Reference Guide 1866-1928''. Routledge, London

External links

Mrs Myra Eleanor Sadd-Brown - Women's Suffrage: History and Citizenship resources for schools - Suffrage Sources DatabaseMyra Brown - Essex Women's Advisory Group websiteYour loving Myra: Letters from an imprisoned Suffragette - recording of the letters of Myra Sadd Brown
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sadd Brown, Myra 1872 births 1938 deaths English suffragists English suffragettes People from Maldon, Essex British feminists British women's rights activists Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom British Christian Scientists Women's Social and Political Union Prisoners and detainees of England and Wales Hunger Strike Medal recipients